


Two Weeks In Norway

by lixabiz



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Drama, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-20
Updated: 2014-07-20
Packaged: 2018-02-09 17:39:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,832
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1991868
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lixabiz/pseuds/lixabiz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Was this what human life was going to be? Pneumonia in a tiny hotel room, with Rose Tyler and her mother, stranded in a storm? Post-JE on a beach fic. You know the one.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Two Weeks In Norway

THE UNIVERSE was greeting the Oncoming Storm with a howling maelstrom of it’s own, whipping sand and sea spray and cold wind across their backs and into Rose’s face.  
  
They’d been trailing behind Jackie, who had spent nearly half an hour dialing and redialing the same number, trying to reach her husband. Rose gritted her teeth, ducking her head against the rain. She couldn’t see very well and it had become a task of effort to keep putting one foot in front of the other. The Doctor’s hand was clamped around her own, his grip solid and sure. Now and then he squeezed her fingers, as though testing to make sure she was still there.  
  
"This is getting worse by the minute," he said, speaking right into her ear to be heard over the storm.  
  
She’d dreamed of that voice and was disconcerted to hear it now, as real as ever.  
  
"Jackie," the Doctor shouted, holding out his hand to Jackie, who turned about to give him a nonplussed, extremely irritated look. "Come on! You won’t get reception in this storm."  
  
"Bloody useless," Jackie snapped, shoving her phone back into her pocket. "This stupid beach! What’s all this now, a typhoon?"  
  
"Global warming, polar ice caps melting, what do you expect?" The Doctor muttered, turning to shield Rose from a particularly vicious buffeting of wind. His voice softened with concern. "Rose, are you alright?"  
  
She was red-eyed from crying and the grit being blown about in the air had caught in her wet lashes, reducing her vision to zero. It stung horribly and she felt sickeningly vulnerable.  
  
"Don’t rub at your eyes," he advised, "You’ll make it worse."  
  
"Wasn’t going to," she replied, unable to keep the  note of petulance out of her voice. He was only demonstrating concern, she told herself. Grateful that she couldn’t see his expression, Rose wiped her face with her sleeve and coughed to cover her embarrassment. "There’s a small town two miles west, we should head there."  
  
They moved towards their destination shivering and numb with cold. The Doctor spent the entire journey with one Tyler woman clamped to each arm, struggling across what had seemed like endless stretches of sand and wet rock.  
  
The wind and rain was so strong Rose was been afraid it might lift them all right off their feet and toss them into the churning ocean. But the Doctor was strong- as always, far stronger than he appeared- and trudged on, leading them to safety.  
  
"Almost there," she heard him say encouragingly to her mum, who was starting to shake and wheeze distressingly loud with each step. Jackie wasn’t physically weak, but she hadn’t the endurance bestowed by Torchwood training and months of blasting her way across untold dimensions.  
  
Rose felt close to exhaustion herself. She leaned against the Doctor, bracing herself against a violent gust. They all pitched backwards from the force of it. The Doctor stumbled, nearly falling but for the weight of Rose and Jackie, anchoring him in place. Keeping him earthbound.  
  
He started shouting, a few minutes later, sounding excited and relieved. Rose strained to listen, but all she could hear was the chorus of rain and the sound of her own ragged breathing.  
  
*  
  
The little family-run inn they found had one room available, but it was well appointed enough. The Doctor conversed in fluent sounding Norwegian with a few of the locals while his companions showered and fed, and all three were led up to their accommodations. Rose and Jackie shared the one bed and the innkeeper had a cot made up for the Doctor, who didn’t seem particularly concerned with either rest or sleep. He sat cross-legged on his bedding in only his trousers and t-shirt because he’d hung his soaking suit jacket to dry by the noisy radiator. He was holding the Tardis coral in one hand and the Dimension canon device in the other, studying both with an intensity of purpose that bemused Rose.  
  
She wondered what he was thinking, but didn’t ask.  
  
Jackie pressed a cold compress to Rose’s eyes. “Sleep, sweetheart. Oh, you poor darling, your eyes are dreadful swollen. My poor baby.”  
  
Rose did as she was told. She had nightmares of getting trapped between dimensions, of getting splinched, of landing in the Thames and vomiting for ten minutes straight from the nausea and stench. She dreamed of the Doctor getting exterminated and lying dead on a dark street, the image so vivid it woke her in cold sweat at dawn.  
  
Reality sank in and she remembered that he’d survived, abandoned her, and moved on. A figure was sat by the window, his broad, blue-suited back to her. The blurry sight of it ignited a wave of longing laced with fury. She shut her eyes, tamping down on the anger, and lay there sleeplessly in the growing light.  
  
Hours later Jackie rolled over in bed, her hand coming to rest on Rose’s cheek. She pulled away in alarm, sitting up in bed, her tone fretful.  
  
"Rose! Oh my god, sweetheart, what’s the matter? You’re running a fever-"  
  
The Doctor hovered by the bed, frowning, as Jackie hurried about, procuring extra quilts and a bottle of paracetamol. The storm howled on, unrelenting. Rose felt hot, then clammy, then ached all over. The room was too small, the bed a prison of suffocating layer upon layer of blanket. She hated that the Doctor was in the room, but she couldn’t bear it if he left. She was a coward who pretended sleep to avoid facing reality. She reminded herself that he had been abandoned, too, discarded by the superior Timelord version of himself, thrown into a world with no escape routes. He wasn’t to blame for this. She had to remember he’d told her he loved her, that he wanted to grow old with her. She wasn’t angry with him, she told herself over and over.  
  
She dreamed of lying on a carpet of green grass, of cool breezes and someone stroking her hair, telling her fantastic stories of monsters and adventure. In her dreams the grating of the radiator became the hum of a distant dimension in space, a running melody of time, glowing gold and vast and bursting at the seams.  
  
Her temperature broke in the evening along with the storm. The Doctor and Jackie were downstairs, presumably having supper with the other guests. Rose dragged herself into the tiny bathroom for a long, lukewarm shower and felt slightly human again.  
  
She breathed deeply, the fog of fever clearing at last. She had to use her head now. She had to think, plan, figure out what to do. Her life was irrevocably different now, nothing like the outcome she’d expected when she had first started leaping through dimensions.  
  
Time to face the music.  
  
Footsteps shuffled in the room as she turned off the water. Someone sat heavily on the bed, making it creak loudly. A string of muttered expletives in a language she didn’t recognize. She moved into the room, her hair dripping puddles onto the worn wood floor.  
  
The Doctor was sitting on the bed, his back against the headboard. His eyes were shut. He looked… odd. Peaky. His expression was slightly pained; his breathing pronounced, uneven.  
  
"What’s wrong?" she asked.  
  
He grimaced, and opened his mouth to speak. But words didn’t come out. What came out was a cough, and then another. And another and another. It started and didn’t stop, for days and days and days.  
  
*  
  
The Doctor had pneumonia.  
  
His racking coughs shook the bed, left him shaky and pale. Rose had never seen him in such a state before and there was nothing he could do about it. His body had to acclimatize.  
  
"N-new universe, new germs," he explained grimly in between fits. "I haven’t got an ounce of immunity."  
  
"We’ll stay until you get better," Jackie assured him. "This weather isn’t safe for travel anyway. Pete’ll fly in next week, once it all clears up."  
  
Rose sat at the foot of the bed, gnawing on her lower lip.  
  
"Don’t-" He coughed piteously, "-don’t look like that. I’ll b-be fine."  
  
Jackie exchanged a worried glance with Rose. “This is serious. We ought to call a Doctor-“  
  
"I’m a Doctor," he choked out indignantly. He tried to inject authority into his tone. It didn’t work that well considering his newly human body was trying to eject his lungs via his nasal cavity. "And my prognosis is not lethal."  
  
"Yeah, yeah," said Jackie, looking highly unconvinced.  
  
But she did have to eat her words a mere three days later.  
  
"You’re recovering fast," Jackie remarked. "When Micky’s gran had pneumonia she was in hospital for weeks. Well, she was old, the poor dear."  
  
"I’m in good shape for 906," he croaked. "Mild congestion in my right lung. S-sounded worse than it was."  
  
The cough had cleared, mostly, though now he had a minor case of laryngitus - he was running the gamut of influenza, it seemed, but was bouncing back rather well from each bout. Perhaps there was still a little residual regeneration energy in him, or perhaps he was just healthy as a horse, but either way was he was glad.  
  
Rose had stopped looking at him like she expected him to drop dead any minute. She hadn’t spoken much despite insisting on sitting by the bed and holding his hand throughout the three hellish days of chills and strained, difficult breathing. Jackie had chided her several times but Rose had steadfastly held vigil, as though his recovery depended on her strength of will. The dark circles beneath her eyes were enormous. No surprise there, he thought, she’d barely slept.  
  
As Jackie plied him with tea with lemon and honey and bowl after bowl of Nordic soup, he worried about Rose. They had some talking to do, and though he had almost no idea what he would say to her, he knew it had to be done.  
  
But even as he tried, she wouldn’t let him.  
  
"Sleep," she’d say.  
  
He pretended to, but not half as much as he’d hoped. _To die, to sleep, to sleep perchance to dream: aye, there’s the rub._ Indeed, he thought, closing his eyes to succumb to the weaknesses of his new body. The calamities of a long life seeming to converge on this tiny room, smaller on the inside than it was on the outside, with its storm soaked windows and an immovable Rose Tyler.  
  
*  
  
Being human was wretched, unaccommodating, unsophisticated and _lousy_. The reality of it slapped the Doctor in the face like a proverbial glove full of bacterial infection. Hitting a new all-time low his first week as a new human hybrid in a new Universe - not fun. Not fun at all.

But it was more than that.

To be _human_. The one species in the Universe not his own that he’d sometimes, not always, felt like he could belong to. He loved humans, of course he’d imagined what it felt like to be one, but _oh you fool, you great big outer space dunce!_ His imaginings had never fully encompassed the truth; they were alien, to him, as he was to them, and now he would always be alien to both, at any given moment and at the same time.

The physiology of being human, that, yes, _that_ he was well acquainted with on an intellectual level. He knew the works, remembered the pheromones in the air leaking off them in moments of distress or arousal, recalled the hiked heartbeat of a terrified companion, the temperature spike of an enraged one: but he hadn’t realized how _entangled_ it all was. The way their bodies mingled with their… souls, for lack of a better word, perturbed him. His previous body had regulated itself so well there had barely been any noticeable link between what he felt and how he physically reacted to it.  
  
Now, however: he noticed. That one heart, constantly in flux, pounding at the slightest provocation, whether it be exertion or fear, elation or Rose’s glances (fleeting, inscrutable) when she thought he wasn’t looking. He was sweating all over the place, the very thought of such lack of control leaving him shaking in his proverbial boots. _Orthomyxoviridae Influenzavirus B_ had knocked him down like a house of cards.  
  
*

"They’re saying the next storm won’t hit until evening," Jackie said, bundling up in a borrowed coat and rain boots. "I’m going to hitch a ride into the next village. They’ve got power." She gave Rose a tight hug. "I’ve got to call Pete, I’m going crazy worrying about him and Tony. You stay here and watch over the Doctor, sweetheart. I’ll be back soon."

"Be careful, mum."

"Will do. Blow out ‘em candles before you go to sleep!"

They sat in the dim afternoon light in silence for a while after Jackie’s departure. He thought of the shameless way he’d used his illness to encroach on her kindness. He wondered if he should give it another go. He really wanted another hug.

But Rose hadn’t said a word to him since the night before, and he was afraid to push his luck.

"Are you hungry?" she asked, quite suddenly.

"You’re talking to me!" He exclaimed perhaps a touch too loudly. He lowered his voice, modulated the tone. "Thought the silent treatment might go on for longer."

"I wasn’t not talking to you," Rose said, eying him warily. "I was being considerate. You were busy hacking up a lung."

"Glad to hear it wasn’t something I said."

She ignored him. “You’re better now? This isn’t some strange Timelord-Human metacrisis side effect?”

"I’m better now," he confirmed. "Nothing strange about it at all! People get sick when they travel, or move somewhere new. Your body has no defenses against germs you’ve never been exposed to. The TARDIS immune system protected you when you were aboard, but after we were… separated, you must have gone through a similar situation."

"Torchwood has vaccines," Rose said simply. "All kinds of bacteria and viruses got through when the Cybermen did, so Pete made me and mum get loads of shots. S’pose I oughta thank him for it now, seeing how you’re getting on."

He sneezed. “Indeed.”

"You scared me. You’re so vulnerable. It really hit home, that you’re human."

Well. Pity was not exactly the number one emotion he wanted to receive from Rose Tyler, but it was better than indifference or utter disregard.

"S’not fair for you," she murmured. "Did he… give you a choice? Did you know you’d be left on the beach with me?"

"I knew." _Because we’re the same, him and I. No discussion needed._   “I’m here because I want to be here. The Universe without you, Rose Tyler… it’s a bit rubbish. More than a bit, actually. Completely and utterly rubbish.”

She smiled, just a little smile, but it gave him hope.

He seized the opportunity, pushed on. “Here you are, working for Torchwood, defending the earth. Rose Tyler! You’re having a grand time of it over here, sorting out all kinds of trouble, getting into loads of adventure, aren’t you? Well, I want some of that! Why would I want to stay there?

Her eyes flickered downwards. “He did.”

Ah.

The words hurt to hear, but probably not as much as they hurt to say.

"Sorry. I’m glad you’re here. Really, I am." She trailed off, tracing circles on the coverlet. "I need some time, that’s all."

_Time_ , he thought, following the path of her fingertip with his eyes, a meandering, curling, twisted road. Sneaking closer and closer to him, becoming a line, straight and confounding, simultaneously hopeful and devastating. Before dying, he’d seen that line, golden and true. After not dying, he’d seen it split, diverge from the first, become faint, fuzzy at the edges. A lost sense. Time would march on for him now, no skipping tracks to get to the good songs, no take-backs, no do-overs.

  
*

"I’ve been angry for days," she admitted, hours of quiet companionship later. "But you don’t deserve it. You haven’t done anything wrong." With that said, Rose squared her shoulders and climbed up onto the bed next to him. She stretched out beside him, leaned her head on his shoulder, and repeated again, "I’m glad you’re here."

Her touch was electrifying. He still found the entire situation slightly unreal - to see her at the end of that dark street, smiling at him - it had seemed impossible. The universe had elected to be benevolent, for that one heart-splitting moment, and then it had reverted to its old ways and sucker-punched him in the gut.

He would have let himself regenerate, if Rose hadn’t been there. Probably. It was always risky to mess with the process. But _Rose_.

She’d fought tooth and nail to get back to him, jumping across dimensions using technology created by people who barely understood it at best, risking her life to save the world. They hadn’t even had a chance to reunite properly - he couldn’t do that to her.

So he’d cheated, kind of, and now he was a human Timelord, created out of desperation and fear and love. He’d poured himself into that jar, into his hand, all of that pent-up love and longing and jubilation at seeing Rose once more. Perhaps his counterpart was right, in a way: those were the things that made people unstable, made them do mad, impossible things.

And yes, when he felt unsteady on his pins, Rose made him better. Fed him soup. Made him stable, held his hand. The one thing he needed in the Universe.

And that was a _gift_. One he had his other self to thank for, and briefly he felt a great compassion towards himself. They were the same man, after all. They wanted the same things.

For Rose to be happy.

She wasn’t. She was, for a fact, heartbroken. Disillusioned. Unforgiving, angry. And for as long as she was all those things, she couldn’t be happy.

"I _am_ the same man, you know,” He began, choosing his words carefully. “He wasn’t lying, when he said all those things. Same thoughts, same memories, same feelings. Which means when I tell you I love you… it’s not just me. We’re the same.”

He heard her swallow, felt her pull away from him. “Don’t.”

"Rose-"

"That doesn’t make it any better." She rolled away, swung her feet over the side of the bed, sat up with her back to him. He couldn’t see her face anymore. Her voice was shaky, surging with emotion. "If you loved me, you wouldn’t have left me behind a second time! You wouldn’t have dumped me, again!"

"Do you think it was easy?" He said more sharply than he’d intended. "Losing you the first time was excruciating enough, let alone twice. You have no idea-"

She stormed across the room, to the window, fists clenched. “Shut up. I don’t want to hear it.”

"I was always going to lose you," he forged on, unrelenting. Sooner or later, they’d have to hash this out. Now that he’d started it, he had to finish it. "You fell into another dimension, but you lived. Burning up that sun, that was the stupidest thing I ever did, but it was the best thing, too. I saw you. You were so alive, you were defending the Earth, being brilliant."

"It wasn’t _brilliant_ ,” she cried, anguished. “I was supposed to stay with you, forever!”

"Forever wasn’t possible for us. Not then."

"You just gave up!" She accused, ignoring him completely. "You said it was impossible, we had to protect the walls of the Universe. Well, I did it, didn’t I? I got through. I found you. You’re just a coward!"

The human part of him wanted to punch the wall, a violent impulse that equal parts horrified and enticed him. But he forced himself to stay seated on the bed, gripped the quilt with his curled fists.

"You’re right. I am a coward. Never could overcome that fundamental character flaw." He ran his hands over his face. "I spent my whole life running away. But I’m not running away now. I’m never going to leave you."

She didn’t respond. He felt, suddenly, dizzy with fear. I’ve cocked this up, he thought. That’s it. That’s what I get, for always doing the right thing. My reward. Bitterness roiled his stomach, made him feel sick. He’d thought he was doing a kindness for them all. Restoring Rose’s faith in the Timelord version of him.

"Do you want me to?"

"What?"

"Leave. If you do, I’ll go."

"No!" she cried. "But even if you stay with me, forever… he’s… he’s not…"

_Not here. Not alright. Not remotely alright._ How could the Universe feel right without Rose Tyler in it? But he’d managed, hadn’t he? Somehow learned how to live without her, those years of her absence teaching him lessons he’d thought he’d already learnt long ago.

This time, however, the loss of her would be different. Bittersweet.

"I mourned you, when I thought you were lost," he said, forcing the words out. "But you’re not lost, not anymore. I’m not the man who left you on that beach. I get to be the man who’ll spend the rest of my days with you. Rose. Please. Don’t you see? In another Universe, in another life, I get to grow old with Rose Tyler, I get to hold your hand for the rest of my life."

His heart was racing with adrenaline, praying that the truth of this statement got through to her. “It’s a _dream come true_.”

Rose let out a sob. She paced by the window, back and forth, three times. Then she turned around, wiping her face with both hands. “But he’s… still out there. By himself.”

"It’s enough," he said gently. "Just knowing that he can save the world… and I never have to lose you."

She understood what he meant with her head, yet he knew it would take years for her heart to fully catch up.

*

Pete’s arrival to Norway was heralded by a deafening shriek of joy from Jackie, who came running up to the room, shouting at Rose and the Doctor to GET READY TO LEAVE THIS GODFORSAKEN DUMP, followed by hastily muttered apologies to the innkeepers, who didn’t speak English but understood tone and body language.

Poor Pete was exhausted. He’d boarded the zeppelin two days prior, flying through the first night and executing an emergency land halfway to Bergen due to another bad storm. He’d then flown the rest of the way nonstop without sleep, alone. When questioned as to why he had not brought crew with him, he had dourly asked if they knew of any pilots who would risk their lives in the advent of tornado-like clouds across a fair portion of Europe.  
  
It had taken a few hours to send word to a nearby city, where a zeppelin driver was hired with much haranguing and the promise of copious amounts of money. Pete was allowed to sleep, and they set off the very next day. Jackie, ebullient with the knowledge of her pending reunion with English soil, pelted her husband with question after question about Tony who she was, understandably, quite desperate to get home to.

Two weeks in Norway. Two weeks of illness and uncertainty and sharing a room with Rose Tyler and her mother. Two weeks of a fairly dreadful beginning to a new life, the trajectory of which the Doctor hoped would take on an upwards incline from this point forward.  
  
"You alright?" Rose asked, settling into the seat across from the Doctor. He pulled his gaze away from the view of the sky outside the Zeppelin window and cleared his throat.  
  
"Lovely, thanks. Got a nice view here. I was just admiring the clouds, saw one that looked just like the interface of the interactive gyro conductor scope, you know, it was starting to get a little bit wonky, I was contemplating giving it a check-up when-" He paused, blinked against the sudden feeling of loss that slammed him. There wouldn’t be any repairs to be made to the Tardis anymore. No more minute touch ups to the Yearometer, or any fine-tuning of the friction contrafibulator. Not by him.  
  
The piece of coral tucked away snugly in the depths of his pocket gave a little tug at his mental strings, reminded him that it was there. Someday it could need repairs too. If he lived long enough, anyway.  
  
He had never grown a Tardis, himself, and hadn’t known how early on they exhibited… autonomy, personality. Perhaps it was because she was a piece of the old girl? He didn’t quite know. It excited him, but worried him, too. Was he capable of raising a full-grown Tardis? Even with Donna’s advice, even with accelerated growth… well, time would tell.  
  
Rose was watching him, her lip caught between her teeth. He shaped his face into something resembling nonchalance, but was pretty sure she wasn’t fooled. He suspected that he was either very bad at feigning indifference, or that his companions just somehow figured out his cues very early on. He’d never been able to get a thing past Rose, or Martha, or even Donna, half the time. But he could deflect like a pro. And the part of him that was Donna was bloody good at talking his way to distraction.  
  
"It was probably just Donna whacking everything up," he mused aloud, rubbing his chin. "All those time lines converging on her, making navigation tricky. He’ll get it sorted."  
  
A silence descended upon them, in which he forced himself to focus on what was before him, not what was gone. He was old hat at that, and ignoring his losses had always been easy with Rose by his side. She could help him forget. She’d done so countless of times before.  
  
 _No_ , he corrected himself, _I’m not going to do that to her. She’s not my baby-sitter._ He still chafed at the implication the other him had made on that beach, that he was unhinged, dangerous. Capable of nothing but destruction.  
  
"I’m sorry," Rose said, interrupting his musings.  
  
He looked up, quizzical. “For what?”  
  
"You’re stuck. Here. No Tardis. No universe to explore."  
  
"Don’t be sorry," he said, leaning forward in his seat to face her. "There is absolutely nothing for you to be sorry about, Rose Tyler."  
  
The coral in his pocket pulsed in his mind again, vehemently. The force of it’s telepathic knock-knock surprised him. And judging from the startled, wondering look on Rose’s face, he suspected it was trying to forge a link with her, too. _Clever girl_ , he praised, patting his pocket. _The universe is just on hold, innit?_  
  
"It won’t be for years, and years," he told Rose. "She may never really grow big enough to drive, not in the way we used to. I have no idea. Time runs differently in this Universe, and there’s never been any Timelords or Tardises here."  
  
"She’s stuck, too," Rose said, sighing. She looked out the window. "Stuck in this strange, backwards, loopy world."  
  
"Nah," he said, and he grinned. "She can’t wait. This is a brand new Universe! The discoveries will be myriad and astounding!"  
  
Rose tilted her head. “Yeah?”  
  
He nodded.  
  
"I’ve been here for years, you know, and some things are still just… so _weird_. You’ll see what I mean.  
  
"Yes. I love weird."  
  
” _You’re_ weird,” she replied. “S’pose that only makes sense. But- oh.” She pressed her lips together, as though suppressing a laugh. She closed one eye, peering at him through the other, and giggled. “I just thought of something. You’re not going to like it. Oh! Nope, not that, either.”  
  
"What?" He demanded, raising an eyebrow. "What? Rose, what? What won’t I like?"  
  
"Oh, you’ll see."  
  
He jumped to his feet and threw himself into the seat next to hers, thoroughly ignoring all the humdrum social rules of personal space. “Come on, tell us! Oi! That’s not fair!”  
  
They tussled and teased and bantered for a good portion of the journey after that. As their aircraft climbed higher and higher, so did their mood. Breaking through the cloud cover, until there was nothing but sun and endless blue sky. It felt like a metaphor, a great omen: the storm was over.  
  
Apparently, being human also made him awfully mawkish. He didn’t care: the future was bright. Shiny. Full of undiscovered potential.  
  
The Doctor felt shiny and happy for a grand total of ten minutes. Then he got lightheaded from the elevation. Another charming new aspect of being human, he thought, along with the susceptibility to toxins and viruses and the extremely quaint respiratory non-bypass system.  
  
But Rose let him lie his head down on her lap and played with his hair, for _hours_ , and he thought about how undignified it all was and, sod it, how bloody magnificent as well.  
  
  
*

End.


End file.
